Germany Finds Replacement Buyer For Its Submarines: Israel

There are those cynical elements out there, who think that the primary reason why Germany has been unhappy with Greece is that the Germany military-industrial complex has lost a staple buyer of its military products (recall: "Greece Spends Bailout Cash On European Military Purchases" and one wonders just how instrumental the brand spanking new PASOK leader, Venizelos, who was Greek Minister of National Defense, has been in such arrangements in the past). Well, Germany may have just found a way out. Reuters reports:

GERMAN DEFENCE MIN SAYS TO DELIVER ANOTHER SUBMARINE TO ISRAEL FOR WHICH GERMANY WILL PROVIDE FINANCIAL HELP

And that is how Germany has just found a replacement to the Greek military bid. And since Israel is not part of TARGET2, it is likely that Germans won't be on the hook for this particular German-funded purchase. The question remains if they will accept shares of Apple in exchange, directly from the Bank of Israel. As for the implications of Germany providing weapons to Israel, well, we can just assume it is part of the New Normal.

Who cares. If you have a number, and something drops from your forecast, you do what you can to replace it with something else. The web hasn't be weaved by anyone other than the participants. Tyler is just pointing it out.

Israel will not pay for those submarines, now that the WWII camp “survivors” are finally dying off, they continue the extorsion racket with weapons for free from Germany. If I remember correctly, they just paid one submarine out of the three they got from Germany.

The German industrialists are happy too, the German tayxpayer is footing the bill.

In any case, the nuclear-tipped missiles those subs will be carrying are not to defend Israel from the useless Middle East militaries, their role is rather to threaten Europe with nuclear devastation if Europe does not help Irael if and when they are overrun by their neighbors’ strong demographics.

Germany sells Dolphin-class diesel/electrics to a wide variety of buyers. The subs are first-rate silent-running (under electric) shallow-water attack subs perfect for the Mediterranean. Countries with deep ocean ports just aren't going to be interested in a sub that can't handle depths, and can't stay submerged for extended periods. So... If you're not going to complete the delivery to Greece, then yeah... who else is Germany supposed to sell it to? Israel is a perfect replacement buyer, both in terms of proximity and in terms of a shallow-depth defensive requirement. This is an obvious, completely expected move.

For the record, Germany sold many more of the Dolphins to Thailand last year than Israel -- but that doesn't make for inflammatory link-bait posts on Zerohedge. Nobody really gives a crap about Thailand defending it's Gulf. So yeah, can you believe it? Fucking Germany selling to Israel. Outrage.

They have already received 5 of them at half price, next to the annual monetary support to Israel and the annual payment for the US bases in Germany. Sucks to be German. Germany has to pay infinitely for stuff that happened 70 or in the future 700 years ago. Reminds me of the 20is, that,s how you start a nationalistic government.

Correct, the 9th sale of a sub that can be converted to fire nuclear weapons to a country that has nukes and has not signed the NPT. Wow, seems like Germany can't get enough of war crimes tribunals......

You don't want to wait until someone else has already smashed the price. You want to be at the head of the line and not at the end. Who cares if you don't time the top perfectly. Much better than being swept away in the panic sell when the bubble pops.

A sub gives Israel an all strike ability. If their possession of Nuclear Arms is to be believed, and if Israel has the technology to put these weapons on the tip of SLBMs, even if Iran was able to destroy Israel, Israel could still strike back. Now that's deterrence. Won't stop Iran from threatening though, not Israel, and not its neighbors. With proxy armies in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, now Syria, Africa and South America, they can still extract their blood.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't deterrence only work once the ability to destroy each other has passed the realm of survivability?

Until that sort of parity is reached, any imbalance is only going to spur the other nation into action to acquire commensurate weapons capability.

In the case of Israel and Iran, if Israel has the ability to destroy Iran from the grave, doesn't it make sense for Iran to want to achieve the same capability? Then, if both nations become the equivalent of giant scorpions that can still sting even after their neural circuits have shut down, only then will they become suceptible to the logic that the madness of their arms race has become senseless, and they will be able to build a detente, knowing they are caught in the perpetual dance of MAD.

World peace at this point is beter served by iran gaining a nuclear capability. The longer Iran remains without a credible deterence, the more likely it is that Israel will attack Iran, and start WW3.

Nuclear deterrence triads (land/sea/air delivery capabilities) only work if you DONT want to use your nukes. If you WANT to use them, then it makes sense that the people you want to use them on don't have them as well, because if they had nukes, they'd use them against you if you used yours, and their use of their nukes would make you not want to use yours, which is the essence of deterrence.

It seems to me that it makes sense then, for every nation to have the ability to launch nukes from the land, sea, or air against any other nation. It's the only way to ensure that no nation does anything stupid. The only ENTITY that doesn't want its neighbors to have the right of nuclear self defense is the one that plans to attack that neighbor in the future. Nuclear deterrence is the nation-sized equivalent of the personal right to bear arms. I am less likely to attack you if I think you could put several 3/4 inch holes in my body within the space of two seconds.

Your logic is flawed. Nuclear weapons aren't only for attack, they're for deterrence. Meaning, I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want, and if you interfere, I'll nuke you. Its a threat. Supposedly Israel has had nuclear weapons for 20 years and they haven't used them. So just why do you think Israel would want to Nuke Iran, to occupy it? Either you're sorely ignorant of the facts and any ability to use reason, or they just don't matter to you.

This is a comment, not a forum for full-blown essays, but I'm happy to flesh it out for you.

Israel has a national ideology that is FOUNDED on obtaining their "true homeland", ie the West Bank. The only trouble is that it is already inhabited by people who are not inclined to just pack up and leave. How will Israel ethnically cleanse the West Bank of Palestinians? Ah, a thorny question, to be sure, and Israel seems to have adopted a 100 year plan of slowly sqeezing the Palestinains out.

But over time, resistance by the Palestinians evolves, complicating the problem. The Pals find allies to help them, like the Iranians. If Israel adopted a pullback to the 1967 borders and allowed the Palestinians to have an independent state, I think the Iranians would leave them alone. Better yet, if Israel adopted a single state approach of full citizenship and civil rights for all inhabitants of the territories controlled by israel, the problem would be completely solved.

But the issues of Jewish State identity prevent both solutions. What is Israel without full settlement of the West Bank? Having nothing but the land of the Philistines means the dream of a Jewish Homeland is bankrupt. Under such conditions, Israel is nothing but a giant Shtetl, or Pale, a ghetto that could be located anywhere on the planet. The ancient land of Judea MUST be taken, the Temple Mount MUST revert to Jewish control. Otherwise, they might as well all go back to Brooklyn.

This crisis of identity is what fundamentally drives Israeli agression. Israel doesn't want to attack Iran "just because". Iran by itself doesn't mean anything. But when put in the context of Israel's Lost Cause for gaining Judea, Iran means everything. If Iran gains deterence capabilitiy, then Iran can keep helping the Palestinians defend themselves, and Israel can do nothing to retaliate. Thus, Iranian nuclear deterrence capabilities spells the DEATH of Israel's national ambitions. Israel becomes simply a Jewish enclave on the shores of the Mediterranean, no temple, no homeland.

This is the real reason behind israel's hysteria surrounding Iran's nuclear capabilities. Israel cannot afford any nation gaining a deterrence capability that might thwart Israel's territorial ambitions. Therefore, I say, yes, Iran has a right to gain a deterrence capability, because Israel has no right to the West Bank, and they might as well get used to being the wandering Jews that they have been ever since that day they stood before Pilate's balcony and cursed themselves.

I'm sorry, but does anybody else see the stupidity of buying sophisticated weapons from another country? It seems to me that in this day and age with software being what it is, it would be easy to put a trojan horse virus in any advanced weaponry.

This was really weak as an article. Germany is the global leader in diesel submarines and has supplied Israel in the past with Type 800 Dolphins. Greece buys Type 214 and has done so since 2000. Pakistan and Turkey and South Korea buy Type 214s. Germany subsidises Dolphins to Israel rather as the USA subsidises its weapons sales to Israel consuming 45% US overseas aid.

BTW Wikipedia states -

On September 21, 2009 TKMS announced that the contract with the Greek Navy for all four submarines had been cancelled due to country's arrears of more than 520 million Euros. TKMS is now seeking arbitration to resolve the matter.

On October 27, 2009 the Greek Ministry of Defence officially confirmed that they intend accepting the three boats built in Greece. The first-of-class boat built in Kiel will not be accepted, and will be offered for sale. Proceeds from the sale will be used to pay the debt to TKMS.[23]

The two sides reached a comprehensive agreement, including the issue of ownership of the Hellenic Shipyards Co., which were transferred from HDW to Abu Dhabi MAR. On 29 September 2010, the contract for the acceptance of all four ships was signed, although the Greek government still states that Papanikolis will be offered for sale. Pipinos will be accepted in April 2012, Matrozos in February 2013, and Katsonis in December 2013. In addition, the contract for two new vessels, to be delivered in August 2017 and August 2018 respectively, was signed, instead of the earlier plans to upgrade two older Type 209/1200 vessels.[24]

Adm. Dean Winslow: What do you think, Mr. Dodge? Lt. Comd. Dodge: I think I'm gonna get my ass kicked, sir. Adm. Dean Winslow: Aw, don't think like that! Damn it to hell! Don't go by the book. Think like a pirate. I want a man with a tattoo on his dick. Have I got the right man? Lt. Comd. Dodge: By a strange coincidence, you do, sir.

Now if Israel has submarines and can sink something, what would these be called beside just plain dangerous? If the WWII U-boats were wolf packs, granted they were in agression mode, what would a IDF pack consist of and be called? Now the IDF mariners have torpedos and cruise missles sounds like a recipe for some serious ass kicking on the water side IMHO.

Buyer? Jews don't believe in buying what can be stolen from the goyim. Germany is a slave state completely owned by the Jews. The hard working Germans transfer tens of billions of Euros of wealth to the warfare state of Israel each year.

Most of Israels ships, submarines, power plants, and all elements of heavy industry are German built and German funded. The Israeli military, on the other hand, is largely gifts ("foreign aid") from America.

ZH is a site for more intelligent people, that much is self-evident. Yet whenever an opportunity emerges on ZH, the anti-semites rise to the occasion. Anti-semitism is the trait of bigots and fools so I guess this site is simply cursed with its quota of bigots since they can't be fools.